


Rockefeller Christmas

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 1930s, Barnes Family, Christmas, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6877852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the very first Rockefeller Christmas tree, and Sarah's chivvying two adolescent boys and three Barnes girls into Manhattan to see if it's as magical as the paper says. It's not the tree, that makes her smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rockefeller Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ItsTheClimb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsTheClimb/gifts).



> As always, originally posted on tumblr, beta-ed by cabloom the benevolent deity, and prompted by itstheclimb, who wanted the boys at the first Rockefeller Christmas tree.
> 
> The first Rockefeller tree is in 1931, [here](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/rockefeller-center-christmas-tree-gallery-1.1537082), but it’s put up and decorated by the workers while they’re still building Rockefeller Center (see the photo), so it seems sort of unlikely that this would be a family holiday (though completely likely that—since it’s also the year the Empire State Building is finished—Steve and Bucky would sneak off to Manhattan to see all the fuss and bother). Officially, according to the ever-reliable internet, the Rockefeller tree begins in 1933 … And because fifteen is one of Those Ages, this becomes a bit more of a family tumble.

“ _ Jaysus _ , Lizzie!” Bucky’s voice echoed down the street, through the frost on the windowpanes where Steve had rubbed a hole to peer through, though when Sarah caught him trying to catch a glimpse of Bucky he grumbled that it was just because the Barneses were always late.  “You couldn’t lose the button at home?  How are we supposed to find it now, when the whole dam—darn city’s under four inches of slush?”

“I checked my buttons before we left,” Nonie declared, prim under her knit cap and a coat that had barely survived Liza Barnes.  “And put on extra socks.”

“And put on extra socks,” Lizzie copied in a singsong voice, sticking her tongue out at Nonie when Bucky was scouring the ground for a button that no one could see.

“Lizzie’s being mean!” Nonie shrieked, and Becky glanced up from her newspaper long enough to swat Lizzie in the back of the head.  Bucky, crouched in the corner of Steve’s clear bit of window, looked ready to spit nails at all three of his sisters.

“I swear to God,” he muttered, teeth grinding when Nonie looked down and replied, “Father O’Malley says you shouldn’t swear.”

“Father O’Malley says you shouldn’t swear,” Lizzie mimicked, and Becky hit her with the newspaper.

“You can all stay in Brooklyn!” Bucky announced, stomping through the slush in his father’s oversized shoes, throwing his hands up in the air.  “Mrs. Rogers can take some other brats to see the tree, little girls that don’t lose their buttons and who mind their manners and don’t preach mass on a Tuesday!”

“It’s Monday,” Nonie corrected, and Steve was still laughing when Bucky threw open the door and barreled inside.

“C’mere,” he said, grabbing onto one of Bucky’s gloveless hands and tugging him toward the stove.  “Your hands look awful.”  Her son caught Sarah watching and ducked his head, but didn’t stop chafing Bucky’s reddened hands between his own thin palms.

“Aw, they’re fine,” Bucky shrugged, face too pink from the cold for Sarah to tell if he was blushing.  “Lizzie just stole my last pair of gloves, is all.”  Lizzie must have stolen them weeks ago, when the temperatures first plummeted well below normal levels for November, because Bucky’s knuckles were red and cracked, the skin on the backs of his hands chafed raw by the freezing wind.  “They’re not that bad.”

“They look worse than your ugly mug,” Steve shot back, blowing on them and holding them over the stove, “And I didn’t think there was anything worse than that.”

Bucky had just gotten Steve into a headlock—fifteen and growing like a weed, a mass of ungainly limbs where a year ago he’d been smaller than Steve—when the girls tumbled through the door, Lizzie and Nonie still arguing, Becky buried back in the fashion section of the old newspaper.

“All right,” Sarah declared, clapping her hands to distract the girls from where their brother had nudged his nose into Steve’s straw-blond hair, an unconscious gesture that Steve hadn’t pushed away.  “Who wants peppermint sticks to eat on the train?”

“Sister Frances says only bums eat on the train,” Nonie announced, and Steve’s hair muffled Bucky’s low scream.

* * *

The tree was beautiful—as tall as a fifth-floor walkup, sparkling with lights and ornaments like the rich people’s trees in Becky’s fashion magazines.  Rebecca immediately faced the other direction, watching the women in their fur-trimmed coats and silk stockings, the men in their suits and brushed hats.  Nonie obediently held her oldest sister’s hand, chin tilted up and eyes wide at the way the light glittered through the branches of the giant pine.  Lizzie thought she saw a kitten and took off through the crowd; Bucky, well versed in all his sisters, sighed and grabbed her by the collar, lifting her right off her feet.

“Stay with Mrs. Rogers,” he ordered, and Lizzie glared at him from a mouth sticky with peppermints.  He scowled right back, though he spun around as soon as Steve said his name.  Sarah pressed her lips together before Steve could see her grin and abandon Bucky just to be contrary.

“Bucky and I are gonna go find chestnuts,” Steve said, already tugging Bucky away, bumping into his friend despite having space in the courtyard to back away.

“Only bums eat chestnuts,” Bucky shouted, laughing when Steve elbowed him in the ribs, sliding his arm over Steve’s shoulders and checking that the scarf was pulled high enough to help stave off the asthma Steve got when the air was too cold.

“ _ Jaysus _ ,” Steve retorted, mimicking Bucky’s favorite word for anything his sisters did.  “Guess what that makes you, ya’ jerk?”  They leaned into each other as they walked away, kicking through the slush and the used paper wrappers and chestnut shells.

Nonie was still staring at the tree, the electric lights reflected in her pale blue eyes.  Becky was planning for next season’s runway, for her debut on a Paris floor.  Lizzie tugged on Sarah’s hand, and raised both dark eyebrows at Bucky and Steve as they disappeared around the corner of the tree.

“Boys are dumb,” she informed Mrs. Rogers, pulling her mouth up and to the left the way her older brother did when he was making a point.

Sarah laughed, and pulled an extra peppermint stick from her pocket, handing it over to the eager little girl.  She looked up to the top of the tree and watched the snow start to fall, flakes catching the light like another ornament on the giant pine.  These were things she never could have imagined, during a war in Ireland, so many years ago.  There were two boys she never could have dreamed of loving, sparking and sparkling, tumbling into men.  “They’re not dumb,” she disagreed, smiling down at an unconvinced Lizzie Barnes.  “They’re just a little slow, Eliza-girl.  Sometimes boys just need a little more time.”


End file.
